16
MADDOX
The beast let me come back to the surface. The world yawned around me as I surged out of the dark hiding place that the beast had shoved me into. I heard the sound of Addie’s soft breath first, then the trickle of water falling behind her. My consciousness was attuned to her in a way that scared me.
What scared me more was how the color drained from the world around us. At first, when I came to, our surroundings were green and filled with life. Then, right before my eyes, it all turned gray. It bent and fell, turning to dust that the wind whipped away.
Addie’s brow furrowed. Her eyes were closed while she pinched the rosary between her fingers. Her lips parted and another stretch of nature fell to her power.
My stomach flipped.
Without thinking, I leapt to my feet and nipped her hand. She yelped and jerked back. The rosary plummeted into the shallow water. Addie gaped at me with horror before looking at her hand. While the skin was red, I hadn’t broken it.
I knew from experience what a beasty bite could do to someone. I wasn’t going to dothatto her. All I’d wanted was to stop her before she destroyed even more of the landscape around us.
Her awareness must have expanded beyond me because I watched her eyes grow wide as she took in the scene around us. Her jaw dropped before she covered it with her hand. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.
Collecting herself, she pulled her hand away from her mouth and rolled her shoulders back. She made a gesture with her hand. A cold power rolled through the area. Life surged all around us, the earth turning green once more. However, it didn’t last long before it crumpled and faded all over again.
Addie choked back a sob. I watched her curiously. Though I’d been angry at her for hiding things from me in the first place, it seemed that not even she knew what she was doing. She held her fisted hands tight to her chest before falling forward. Forehead pressed to the cold stone, she cried.
“I-I-I w-wish I could…b-be different,” she said between sobs. “I wish I could brew potions like Cerri. I wish I could make rainbows like Vi.”
She screamed into the stone.
Silence settled in after the echo faded. I sat back and watched her. How was I supposed to comfort her with these talons on my paws? I was useless for now. Even if I wasn’t, I didn’t know where to begin. How does one comfort a necromancer capable of such horrors?
“All I do is hurt people. I hurt the living and the dead. I’ve wrecked lives and destroyed spirits. It doesn’t matter what I do to make things right. All I’ve ever done is make things worse in the end.”
Movement caught my attention. I glanced around and noticed several small bodies appearing. Rabbits rose from the earth and shook themselves, their ears popping up. Small mice climbed onto the rock around Addie. I watched fish and frogs flow out of the earth and start to swim around the rock while Addie cried.
Though she mourned for her destructive power, it’d created a burst of life that all looked to her. It was all at once beautiful and devastating. I imagined the small creatures were waiting for orders. Addie had control over all these little lives. They could do nothing on their own. Yet, here they were without a care in the world.
It mattered little to these creatures that they had no autonomy. They had no souls, no reason to fight back. They weren’t suffering. They were happy to please.
I couldn’t decide how I felt about this. While it was beautiful, it was also terrifying. I’d watched bodies claw their way out of the earth to attack me. This was nothing like that, but it was somehow worse. Addie didn’t just raise zombies, she brought forth fully formed creatures with no will of their own.
I would have understood why the killer was hunting her had the killer not displayed power like her own. People would see this and run scared. They would want to stop her any way they could to keep her from turning against them and their beliefs.
This killer was just like her, though. I didn’t understand why he wanted her dead. They could have been allies. Instead, he sought to kill her before she became stronger than him.
That was a weak man’s prerogative. He was threatened by Addie and her sheer power. Instead of taking it for his own, he sought to kill her so that she could never stop him. I understood what was happening now.
If only I’d chased him down earlier. Addie’s command had kept me from running after him. My beast berated me for not tracking the man’s scent. I hadn’t thought to sniff him. To be fair, that wasn’t something I would have done normally. Who sniffs a person?
Addie finally looked up. While wiping at her tears, she took in the small creatures gathered around her. She extended a shaking hand to touch the head of a rabbit. Still trembling, she dipped her hand into the water so the fish could swim around her.
“This is wrong,” she whispered sadly.
My heart lurched. Her pain was my pain in a way that I could hardly understand. I jumped to my feet and padded over to her so I could press my body against her shoulder. I leaned into her too hard and nearly knocked her into the water.
Without thinking, I caught her with my teeth on her shirt. She came to a halt right above the shallow water. With a tug, I yanked her upright and offered an apologetic look.
“I see you’re back to yourself again,” Addie said.
I tilted my head. She must have noticed when my beast took control. I huffed, annoyed that I couldn’t be in the pilot’s seat at all times. This wasmybody. I should always be in control. But the beast laughed at me.
Perhaps I should talk to that dragon that Addie had sent after me. He would have answers that I needed, but I wasn’t about to admit weakness to someone larger and stronger than myself. Until I understood this man and his stance, I wasn’t going to trust him with anything.